


Love Is A Loaded Gun

by GideonGraystairs



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Businessman Magnus, Family Issues, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rivalry, Self-Hatred, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 22:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10976502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GideonGraystairs/pseuds/GideonGraystairs
Summary: Alec is a prostitute, selling himself with a sick feeling in his stomach and a deep chip on his shoulder. Magnus is a wealthy business man with a multi-million dollar company, coming home to an empty loft and a lonely bed. It's a twist of fate that draws them together, politics and the past that pull them apart, and the thrill of life through another's eyes that binds them to each other.





	Love Is A Loaded Gun

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to FF.net on June 8th, 2016. The second chapter is about halfway written.

The room was dim and filthy, as they always were. Alec slipped his jacket off as he entered, the worn fabric fluttering towards the ground much too quietly to be heard over his thudding boots. He ditched those in a neat little row by the door. Breathing in the smell of cheap motel and rank sweat, he twisted his emotionless features around to catch sight of the man stepping in after him.

He was tall, a less common detail than the choice of room, and lanky in a way that spelled awkward in capital letters. Short red hair full of tousled curls, dull green eyes wide with nerves, pasty skin speckled with freckles― he was the sort Alec didn’t usually cater to. He’d made an exception this once for the fact that he’d looked like he was going to implode with anxiety from the moment he approached them on the street. Alec had taken one look at him and known he’d be a safe bet, even if he might not dough out as much as the others.

Turns out, the kid had a pocket full of green Alec could see from all the way across the room and enough nerves to toss it all at once. He probably wouldn’t even have to do much, just the plain old vanilla he hadn’t been back to in at least a year now. Freckles didn’t look experienced enough to need much― if he was even experienced at all.

The boy shuffled in place, letting the door fall shut behind him, and flicked his eyes to Alec’s for the briefest of moments. “Um,” he mumbled in the most unsteady voice Alec had possibly ever heard. “I’m Nathan?”

It sounded more like a question than a statement of fact, a notion that had Alec almost digging out a soft spot for him. Almost, but Alec had been around the block far too many times to ever actually lift the shovel. Instead, he kept his expression as the blank canvas it usually was and went for words he knew wouldn’t paint it with any true colour. “Xan,” he tossed back monotonically. “I take payment first.”

Nathan’s wide eyes grew even wider as he scrambled into action, fumbling around his pocket for the wad of cash he should have tried better to hide before wandering over to the wrong side of town. He nearly dropped it the moment he managed to get a hold of it, the flimsy paper slipping through his fingers only to wind up caught against his khakis. Alec might have laughed at the awkwardness of it all if he hadn’t thought it might make the money disappear. Besides, he wasn’t much the type to really laugh at anything anymore.

The kid’s hand trembled as he reached it towards him with a shaky, “Oh, yeah. Of course. Here.” Alec snatched it between long fingers of porcelain pallor and shoved it into his jeans without a word.

Fiddling with the sleeves that hung far past his shaking hands, Nathan flicked his eyes up to Alec’s for the billionth time that night, like he kept thinking this wasn’t actually happening only to have it shockingly confirmed each time he glanced up. Full lips curved into a sigh, blue eyes tracing down the other’s body in silent consideration.

“How do you want me?”

Nathan jerked, green gaze slamming to blue in surprise. “What?” he questioned dumbly, like he’d forgotten why they were here. Alec raised an eyebrow.

“On the bed, on top, just touching, still clothed…” he trailed off, giving the kid a look that said he should have understood the question by now. Judging by the nearly alarming shade of firetruck red he turned, Alec would say he had.

“Oh,” Nathan muttered, his voice cracking over the simple syllable. He shifted, fiddling some more with his sleeves as he shuffled his feet, before finally taking the first step forward since the door had clicked shut. “I guess just normal? I don’t know.”

Alec nodded in affirmation, face just as expressionless as when he’d entered, and yanked his shirt over his head. He dropped his pants just as quickly, leaving the briefs on as he let his arms fall back to his side. Nathan watched the practiced motions, every thought flying across his face in plain sight, and didn’t step closer until Alec had finished. He was hesitant, hands lifting to flutter in the space between them until the darker-haired of the two gave him another expectant look. It was almost cute, or it would have been if not for the situation they were in. Or, maybe it was just that Alec didn’t find anything  _ cute _ anymore.

“Can I touch?” Nathan paused, eyes shooting to his yet again. A blank nod was all it took this time to have him reaching out to run shaking fingers across Alec’s snow white skin. As soft as feathers and hard as rocks, he could see the switch flip the second the boy made contact. It was always like that with the new ones, like snow stretching over muscle somehow sealed the deal. It was quick from there, like most things were when they took place in cheap motels falling apart at every undusted nook and cranny.

Hands flitting about his skin, lips licked and green eyes turning to forests of lust. He’d been here a thousand times before, two thousand, three. He knew the drill by heart, no matter how many different ways it presented itself, and every step felt like water― flowing, slipping through time, smooth and effortless in the most awful of ways. It snagged over the rocks Alec hated most, over sheets scratching into his back and nails pulling him this way and that, quiet beats of aftermath he knew now to charge extra for.

Alec hated all of it really, but some parts were so menial, so practiced, they almost weren’t parts at all.

He didn’t say a word as Nathan sung the usual soft notes of praise, didn’t even acknowledge his existence as he pulled himself up and into his clothes. He patted his pockets, double-checking for the wad of cash out of cautious habit, and nodded in satisfaction when his hands met crinkled paper. Boots slipped back over his feet, jacket tossed back across his shoulders, Alec didn’t bother glancing down at the kid again as he left the room in silence. His shoes thudded loudly on the dirty motel carpet and then concrete, the only sound he’d made in the last hour.

It was over, like it always was. He left, like he always did. The cold bit at his skin through his worn-out clothes and his flesh ached with impossible nails digging through it. His hands started to shake in the pockets of his jacket, his throat blocking off the air. Crickets chirped into the night and he took comfort in the sound; so ordinary, so familiar, he found them like an anchor to something he couldn’t place. He didn’t glance left or right before crossing the road and he didn’t check for stalking strangers or swerve to avoid the angry-looking druggie in faded black sweats. He counted the cracks in the concrete as he went, just like always.

He felt as dark and dirty as the cheap motel room, just like always.

 

 

“I’m not going to repeat myself,” Magnus snapped at thin air. He waited all of two seconds full of crackling static before reaching forward to jab the call button on the main console. The line cut out with a beep, a robotic female voice announcing his call had ended, and he found himself scowling out the windshield to the dark streets beyond.

It was a wonder he ever accomplished anything with the bumbling idiots he had for co-workers, really. This was the fifth call he’d had to make in the past two hours to fix their careless mistakes, ones they’d made a dozen times before and would surely make again before the next print of Fashion Illustrated was even released. He’d have understood if there’d been new employees hired within the last month, ones who hadn’t yet messed up the order of the spreads to know not to be so moronic again, but such was not the case. It was the same old idiots as last time, Clare and Maurice or something like that. Magnus wasn’t really for learning the names of those he didn’t care much for.

The car snagged on a sudden bump in the road, most likely a purposeful one meant to slow the occasional street-racer down. Magnus jerked in his seat, slamming back into it uncomfortably hard. He blinked, squinting out at what he could see of the road in the pools of his headlights to check for any more surprises. He didn’t see any, nor could he make out any lines of yellow in the approaching dark, but he made a mental note to keep watch. They could’ve been a fair distance apart.

Or there could have been no more at all, as he discovered when a set of stoplights came into view and there was still no sign of the offending yellow stripes. He shook his head, tousles of black hair striped through with pink and blue tumbling across his vision as he did. The gel he’d spiked into it that morning had long since worn off, considering it was currently one thirty in the morning and the substance was only meant to last sixteen hours. He knew he should have bucked up and bought the more expensive stuff, but the sandalwood smell of this one had simply been too enticing to resist.

It wasn’t until he was already sinking his foot to the brake pedal that he noticed three figures standing around by the lights. He couldn’t make them out very well in the dark, but he caught sight of dishevelled clothes that clung too tight and too short to all three of their bodies. The car ahead of him rolled down its windows as one leaned over to knock at it and, before Magnus knew it, the kid― who couldn’t have been more than sixteen now that he could actually see him ―was prying open the passenger door and sliding inside. His friends watched the car pull away, completely ignoring the glaring red light, and he distractedly noted the taller of the two didn’t look away until the car had completely vanished. Magnus scowled, pulling forward to the space the vehicle had left, and silently prayed they wouldn’t try to proposition him as well.

His prayers, it seemed, had been for nothing. Rolling down the window with a perfect scowl still in place, Magnus leaned across the console to hear the boy leaning through his door better. It’d be easier to turn him down and give him a verbal beating if he knew exactly what comebacks to use.

“Hey sugar,” the kid drawled, a heavy accent Magnus believed to be Texan coating his voice. “Wanna have some fun?”

“Yes, actually,” Magnus replied easily. The boy’s face twisted into a supposedly enticing smirk at the words, something akin to pride dancing in his eyes. He was probably thinking of how much money he could cash out with here, based on the expensive suit Magnus was still wearing and even more expensive car he was currently seated in. He didn’t feel at all bad when he added, “Preferably with someone who isn’t twelve and likely to give me an STI.”

Tan skin twisted into a scowl to match the one Magnus had been sporting mere moments ago, before the suggestive smirk returned and he leaned a little further into the window. “Oh, come on,” he tried. “Baby, don’t be like that. You know I could show you a good time.”

Magnus found himself curling his lips up in disgust, beginning to move back fully into his seat, since clearly this kid really didn’t have anything of value to say and couldn’t seem to take a hint. Just as he was opening his mouth to shoot back something vicious, though, the other boy who’d been standing around by the lights stepped forward to tap his friend’s shoulder.

“Trix,” he stated firmly, giving the kid a look that appeared almost parental. Magnus could read the protectiveness in the way he faced the younger man and the kid’s respect for him in the way he immediately leaned back from the window. It was perplexing in the briefest of moments, before Magnus chalked it off to some kind of street code he had never needed to be aware of.

He was about to fully draw himself back into the driver’s seat and pull through the now green light when the man bent down mildly to catch his gaze through the still open window. With stunning blue eyes unreadable in a way Magnus found even more perplexing than the two’s behaviour toward each other, the man gave him a definitively indecipherable look.

“Sorry,” he offered, though the word sounded about as meaningful as drying paint. Magnus tried not to frown, instead raising an eyebrow as he continued, “He’s pushy.”

This time, Magnus did frown. “Aren’t you all?” he questioned dryly.

The man’s face twitched briefly into something he could’ve almost called a half-smile before sinking back to the blank canvas he’d perfected. He didn’t say anything more, just stepped away from Magnus’s car with a steady gaze still fixed on the sleek vehicle. It wasn’t until Magnus began to pull forward through the stoplights that the man finally turned back towards the younger boy. He caught sight of him stuffing his hands into the pockets of his worn-out jacket and the kid shrinking guiltily at whatever he must have said before he had a chance to turn his gaze back to the passing road.

He shook his head as if to clear it, stepping harder on the gas. The car ground faster in response, leaving both the stoplights and the two boys behind in the dark. Something flickered in his gut, almost taking the appearance of concern, but he flicked it away as quick as it came. It didn’t matter that the older of the two had the most incredible eyes he’d ever seen or that he found his carefully neutral expressions perplexing; they worked the corner. He was almost definitely never going to see them again and, really, that was a good thing. He hated being propositioned like some dirty old man with no sense of self-respect and he hated it even more when it came from teenage boys who were meant to have their whole lives ahead of them.

Magnus shook his head again, this time effectively wiping the encounter from his mind. Reaching over to grab his phone out of the middle cupholder and swipe over yet another incompetent idiot’s contact, he tossed the device over to the passenger seat and set to work grinding his employee into the dirt.

Honestly, how  _ did _ he get anything done?


End file.
